20
Instruction manual
Starscopes on azimuthal mount
A lot of interesting celestial objects are wai-
ting to be viewed by you. A detailed listing
would go beyond the scope of this guide.
There is very good literature on this subject
in our online store and, of course, a lot of free
information on the Internet and astronomy fo-
rums. Nevertheless, here are a few examples,
which are ideal especially for the beginner.
The Moon
The moon is the easiest and especially for
beginners an extremely productive observati-
on object. It is easy to find and shows a lot of
details even for the untrained eye. Especially
interesting is the observation of the light-dark
boundary, the so called „terminator“.
There the sun casts long shadows, so that
craters and mountains look especially vivid.
At full moon no shadows can be seen, the
moon then looks flat and overlit.
The planets
If you have some observing experience with
the moon, the planets are the next interesting
target. You can see especially much at Jupi-
ter and Saturn. Saturn‘s rings, for example,
or even Jupiter‘s four brightest moons can be
seen without much experience.
With a little more practice you will be able to
see many additional details, e.g. the cloud
bands on Jupiter.
Venus (also known as the morning or evening
star) already shows its phase shape even in
small telescopes, similar to our moon.
Mercury, Mars and Uranus are also within
reach of your telescope, but they show much
less detail than the planets Jupiter and Saturn
mentioned above. You should observe the
planets during a so-called „opposition“, since
they are closest to Earth then.
Note: Not all planets are visible in the sky at
all times. A celestial calendar tells you which
planets are visible and when and where they
can be discovered.
Objects outside our solar system
There are also numerous objects which are
within the range of your telescope.For the
beginning the perhaps most interesting „Deep
Sky Objects“.
• the „Ring Nebula“ M57 in Lyra
• the globular cluster M13 in Hercules
• the Andromeda Nebula M31, a huge galaxy
at a distance of about 2.5 million light years
(use as low magnification as possible).
• Open star clusters like the
Pleiades
in
Taurus,
h and xi
in Perseus or
M11
in the
constellation Scutum.
Observation examples
